ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 didn’t remain the 3D King for long: Nvidia regained the initiative by launching their new GeForce 9800 GX2. However, AMD graphics division still has something to respond with: a graphics subsystem with three ATI Radeon HD 3870 chips. Will ATI 3-way CrossFireX platform be able to compete successfully against Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2? We are going to answer this question in our today’s review!

Performance in RPG

Hellgate: London

Despite the good results, the Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 cannot be used for Hellgate due to the flickering of the image in SLI mode. You can disable this mode and use the card as a GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB with appropriate performance. A for the 3-way CrossFireX platform, the system just hung up as soon as the game menu was loaded. Let’s wait for the updates of the Catalyst and ForceWare drivers.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The game loses much of its visual appeal without HDR. Although some gamers argue that point, we think TES IV looks best with enabled FP HDR and test it in this mode.

As we noted in our previous report, ATI’s CrossFireX technology for more than two GPUs behaves oddly in TES IV, having big fluctuations of minimum performance in closed environments and a small performance reduction relative to the single Radeon HD 3870 X2. The Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 is immaculate in comparison.

It’s different in the open scenes: ATI’s multi-GPU systems take the lead, and it is the Zotac GeForce 9800 GX2 that has a low minimum speed now, only 20fps at 1920x1200. The 3-way CrossFireX platform makes the game playable even at 2560x1600. So, the two opponents seem to end this round of our test session with a draw.